Afterglow
by HailAndFarewell
Summary: As Renesmee Cullen approaches her 9th birthday, things start to change. Her relationship with Jacob is not the same, but as she begins craving human blood, she fears she is becoming the monster the Volturi thought she was. Now, struggling to keep her family safe from herself, Nessie begins to understand what it means to be both human and vampire.


Prologue

Rosalie Hale

THE SCENT OF BLOOD HIT MY NOSTRILS, AND I SKIDDED TO A HALT. Emmett crashed into me a half second later—obviously not watching where he was going— and laughed as we both fell to the ground, but I pushed him off.

"What's wrong, Rose?" He asked, the smile falling off his face when he saw the look on mine.

I sniffed the air again. "There's someone out here," I said. "I can smell blood, and it's fresh."

He sniffed, too, and frowned. "Someone hunting, maybe," he said. "Or hiking. Not a very smart idea at this time of year, what with the bears and all, but you never know."

I froze suddenly. The wind was quiet now, and I could hear something out of place in the distance. It was very faint, but I still heard it. It was a sound I would know anywhere, from any distance.

It was the sound of a baby crying.

Emmett must have heard it the same time I did, but he was a second too late. I was already running.

"Rose, no!" He yelled, voice carrying through the woods. But he must have known he was too late to stop me.

I had never been the fastest runner, but I was pretty sure that, in my hurry to get to the crying child, I could've beat Edward in a race. My legs were running purely on instinct, and I didn't even pay attention to where I was going, my nose leading me to where I needed to go. The only thing that mattered was finding the child that probably needed my help.

My feet took me to a small trail, where there was a picnic blanket lying crumpled on the ground, next to a red cooler that had been tipped over. There were two backpacks and empty water bottles, apple cores, and zip-lock baggies. Emmett had been right about someone hiking. They must have stopped for lunch when whatever happened… happened.

There was a lot of blood, too, covering the blanket. It'd been splashed against the side of the cooler, and then… then it made a trail, towards a small tree a few feet away. A body was lying against the tree trunk, mangled and bloody. I walked over to it, a sick feeling in my stomach.

The sight of the body was horrible. Long gash marks across its face, which I could tell was male, and blood soaking the chest. There was a wallet a few inches away from me, and it had probably fallen out of his pocket. It certainly looked like he had been attacked by a bear. I picked up the wallet, flipped it open, and peered at the driver's license. _Joshua Carter,_ it read, followed by a birth date.

I heard Emmett approach before I saw him, and looked up. There was a question in his eyes. "It was a bear attack," I confirmed. "At least a minute ago. Two, at the most. We just missed it."

He nodded, swallowing. I knew he was remembering when I had saved him from that bear. "With any luck, we'll catch it before we go home. Did you find the child?" He asked me.

I shook my head, but looked towards the bushes, where it was clear someone had dragged themselves over. They were probably hiding in there now. Waiting until it was safe, or too injured too move. I'd bet the latter. Emmett understood what it meant, because he started to go towards it, but I shook my head.

"I'll go first," I said, keeping my voice low so that no human would hear it. "Then you follow."

He hesitated, but nodded, and I walked over to the bushes. My footsteps were soundless, so when I peeked over the bush, the small boy sitting there gave a terrified squeak. He looked unharmed, but his blue eyes were wide with fear, and he was sitting next to a body. There was blood on his shirt.

My heart broke for this little boy, who was so small that he could only be about two-years-old. I. I had no idea what he'd seen, but I know it must have been terrible.

"H-help," the boy whispered. "Momma. Momma hurt."

I swallowed. "It's okay," I told him soothingly. "You're okay now."

Emmett joined me, and the boy looked even more terrified, and looked to me, like he was asking me if it was safe. I nodded.

We went around the bushes, and I found the source of the crying. The boy wasn't alone. Lying on a small blanket next to him was a small baby girl, probably only months old, with dark curly hair. She was sucking on a pacifier, her cheeks red.

"Are you hurt?" Emmett asked him.

The boy shook his head. "N-no, Momma… Momma hurt…" he said.

A hand grabbed my wrist, just as I reached for the baby, and I looked down. It was his mother, who I'd assumed to be dead. I quickly assessed her, and saw that she had been badly hurt. She was barely clinging to life, and probably only had minutes left. "Please," she whispered.

She reminded me of Bella, when she had been pregnant with Renesmee. Her eyes were filled with the same determination. "Please… take… my babies," she whispered. "W-we were all t-they had."

I understood what she meant. Her children would be orphans when she died. "Emmett, take them back to the house, and get Carlisle," I said.

He nodded, and picked the boy up from the ground. I handed him the baby. "No!" He protested, tears running down his cheeks. He struggled to get free, but his effort was wasted. "Momma!"

"It's okay," his mother said. Her voice was so weak it was barely a whisper.

He stopped struggling, and Emmett looked at me, hesitating, and then left. I turned back to the mother.

"What happened to you?" I asked her quietly. "Try not to use too many words, if you can manage it. You need to keep your strength."

The woman looked determined to hang on, as long as possible, for her children. "Bear," she murmured.

"A bear attacked you? And your husband?" I asked. She nodded, weakly. I could hear her heart beating, and each one was slower than the last.

"Please… Xander, Emmaleah. You… take… them. They're… yours… now," she gasped, gripping my hand with what little strength she had left.

"I will, I promise," I said.

And then, with a last breath, her heartbeats came to a halting stop, and the woman's brown eyes looked blankly up at me.

She was gone.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding, and leaned forward to close her eyes. I heard Carlisle and Edward's footsteps approaching, and I turned to see them coming toward me. Carlisle had his medical box with him.

"What happened?" He asked.

"The couple were attacked by a bear," I said. "I think her husband distracted it, so she could take the children, and then she was attacked, too. She crawled over here, and waited until Emmett and I found her. Then she died. I couldn't save her. There was too much blood."

Carlisle nodded, closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them again.

"And the children? Did you get their names?" He asked.

I nodded. "The boy is named Xander, and the girl is Emmaleah," I said. "She told me, to take care of them. She said they have no other family, and that they're mine now. I promised her I would take care of them."

"Then they're yours," he said. "We couldn't abandon them, and they're too young to tell our secret."

"Exactly," I said. "Besides, I refuse to break my promise."

He smiled. "And anyway, if you didn't take them, Esme probably would," Edward said, speaking for the first time.

Carlisle agreed, and they left to take the bodies back to the house. After I picked up the blanket, their backpacks, and cooler, I followed the human scent down to a car at the end of the trail, hoping to find some information that would tell me who the babies' were. L

Luckily, their mother had their birth certificates in their diaper bags, which were in the front seat, and my estimation of their ages had been right. Emmaleah had just turned six months, and Xander was two. Their mother's name was Sofia.

I looked through Sofia's purse, and found a black notebook filled with information. She was one of those parents who liked to record everything, which, in this case, was a good thing. According to her notebook, they'd been on their way to Vancouver for vacation, but Xander had a stomach ache earlier that day, so they'd decided to take a break from driving.

It was all I could find, but it was good enough. I guessed that they'd heard about the trails, decided to check them out and have a picnic. It was possible, although it wasn't exactly a good idea.

When I was done, I drove the car back to the house, parked it in the garage, and went inside. In the living room, I found Esme holding Emmaleah on her lap. When she saw me, the infant held her arms out, and I smiled, picking her up. She buried her face in my shoulder.

"Someone's claimed you already," Esme said, laughing. "Carlisle says her name is Emmaleah?"

"Yes," I said, sitting in the chair across from her. I set Emmaleah on my knee, and she began to babble, holding onto my fingers. "Her mother had both birth certificates in the car. Her full name, according to her birth certificate, is Emmaleah Sofia, and she just turned six months a few weeks ago."

"It's a good thing we kept all of Renesmee's baby stuff, then," said Alice, entering the room with a bottle in hand. "At least she'll stay in the same size long enough to wear things more than once."

She handed me the bottle, and I pulled Emmaleah into my arms. At first, she protested, but when I gave her the bottle, she sucked greedily. I had a feeling she was starving. Who knew how long it had been since she had eaten?

Just then, Xander came skipping into the room, Emmett following behind him. Xander was wearing a T-shirt that was so big on him it was practically a dress, even though I could tell it was being held back by pins, and there was icing all over his face.

He bounced over when he spotted me. "Rosie!" He exclaimed happily. "Em says me and Emmy are gonna stay wif you. Can we stay wif you, Rosie?

I smiled at him. "Of course you can," I said. "I would like that very much."

"Yay!" He said, and then he frowned. "Is Mommy and Daddy gonna come pick us up soon, Rosie?"

The smile fell off my face, and I shook my head. "No, sweetheart," I told him. "Mommy and Daddy are going to live with the angels. Your Mommy says I get to take care of you and Emmy now."

He looked confused. "Momma and Daddy went away?" He asked.

I nodded. "Yes," I said.

For a minute, he was quiet. I wondered if he would start crying. But he didn't. Instead, he took a deep breath and nodded. "Rosie, is you and Em gonna be my Mommy and Daddy now?" He asked.

I didn't know how to answer. I hadn't been expecting _that _question. Thankfully, Emmett saved me from answering.

"You don't have to call us Mommy and Daddy, if you don't want to," he said. "You can call us Uncle Emmett and Aunt Rosie for now, if you want."

Xander nodded. "Okay," he said.

There was silence for a minute, until Emmaleah spit out her bottle, and burped, rather loudly for a baby, I thought. Emmett burst into laughter. Esme and I stared at her, amazed.

Emmett reached for her, his eyes asking me for permission, and I handed her over. He took her in his arms. She gazed up at him, her eyes wide. "You and I are going to have lots of fun together," he told her.

I turned to Xander. "Are you hungry?" I asked, and he nodded. "Okay, then. Let's go get you cleaned up, and get you into some proper clothes, and we'll get you something to eat. Okay?"

He nodded again. I took his hand, and we headed down the hall into the bathroom.

Later, Alice brought the bags into the bathroom, and we started Xander's bath. We let him pick his own shampoo and body wash, opening the different bottles and letting him smell it. His facial expressions were hilarious, and by the time he picked one, Emmett was laughing.

We washed his hair first, using a cup to rinse the soap out, and Emmett helped with the rest. Emmaleah sat contentedly in my lap, but occasionally, she would giggle, as if she found something funny, and for a moment, I would simply stare at her in amazement, and then smile.

When Xander was finished, he sat in the tub for a few minutes, making bubble-moustaches with Emmett—who was having just as much fun as he was—while I quickly bathed Emmaleah. I had never heard a baby scream so loudly. The second she touched the water, she started wailing.

"Emmy no like wet," Xander said.

I hurried, as fast as I could, all the while reassuring her that it was okay. It didn't seem to work, because she kept wailing.

Finally, I was done, but she screamed even louder once we actually got her out of the water. I wrapped her in a towel, and held her for a minute, rocking her back and forth until she calmed down. Then I laid her on the bathroom floor, changed her into a clean diaper and a pair of warm pajamas, which Alice got from the boxes of Renesmee's clothes, and I smiled. I had hoped that one day the outfits we had put on Renesmee would be used again, but I had never imagined that my own daughter would be the one wearing them.

By the time I was done with Emmaleah, Emmett had finished dressing Xander into his own pajamas, and we left the bathroom. In the kitchen, we found Esme, sitting with Bella and Renesmee at the table. Renesmee was already eating, and she smiled at Xander when we walked in.

Xander gave me a questioning look. "That's Nessie,atI told him. "It's okay. You can go sit with her."

He did. I almost laughed when I saw what Esme had made them—chicken nuggets and French fries.

I had to give Emmaleah another bottle. I had noticed that there was baby pablum for her in her diaper bag, so I mixed some of that. In my opinion, it looked absolutely disgusting, but she seemed to enjoy it, and ended up eating almost the whole bowl.

"Piggy," Emmett laughed, taking the bowl away.

Xander was done eating, too. He yawned, pushing his plate back. "Story time?" He asked me hopefully.

"Um…" I hadn't seen any books in his bag, or Emmaleah's. "Just a minute." I handed Emmaleah to Emmett, and went into the garage, looking through his parent's bags again. I found a small pile of books at the bottom of his mother's, and went back into the house, relieved.

They were sitting on the couch when I came back in, and Xander was leaning against Emmett. He was probably exhausted. It was later than I'd realized. Emmaleah had fallen asleep, holding Emmett's hand.

"Can I come too, Aunt Rosie?" Nessie asked from the doorway, noticing the books in my hand.

I nodded. The boys got up from the couch, and we headed upstairs. Edward, Carlisle and Jasper had cleaned up the guest room across from our room earlier, because there was now a rocking chair in the corner, which had been downstairs when Nessie was little, and the blankets were pulled back. Xander crawled into the bed, and Emmett and I sat on either side of him—Emmett was still holding Emmaleah—and Nessie sat next to me.

"Once upon a time," I began.

I was barely finished the second story when Xander fell asleep, leaning his head against Emmett's shoulder. Nessie had stayed awake the whole time, so I finished the story for her, and then we all crawled off the bed. I tucked Xander in, kissing the top of his head, and grabbed the stuffed animal from his diaper bag, which Alice had brought in while we were reading. His arm wrapped around it, and he snuggled into the blankets.

"Good night, sweetheart," I whispered.

I turned the light off, and the three of us left the room. Nessie gave me a hug, and kissed Emmaleah on the cheek, and then she went downstairs, where Bella was waiting to take her back to the cottage. In our room, I saw that Nessie's old crib had been set up against the wall, and I smiled.

"Well," Emmett said quietly. "I'd make a joke about not getting anymore sleep after this, but it wouldn't work, since we don't sleep anyway."

I laughed. "I'm glad we went hunting today," I said. "I feel like I shouldn't be happy, considering that the only reason we have these babies is because their parents were killed. But I am. Is that wrong?"

"No," he said. "We'll mourn the deaths of their parents, just as they will, but something good came out of this. You're allowed to be happy. If we hadn't gone hunting, if you hadn't caught that scent, then… well, I hate to think of what would have happened. Everything happens for a reason, Rose. Even the bad things."

I smiled a little, and kissed him. "Thank you," I said. "We should probably put her down, don't you think?"

"I don't know," he said. "I kind of like holding her. Maybe we should just hold her all night so we can stare for hours at this beautiful baby that is now ours."

I laughed, shaking my head. "Alright. But only for a little while," I said.

We settled on the bed, and I leaned my head against his shoulder, watching Emmaleah as she slept.

"You know, when I imagined what our kids would look like, I always thought that the boy would look like you and the girl would look like me. But it's exactly the opposite," I said.

"You can't always have _everything _you want," Emmett said.

I smiled. "No," I said. "But at least I'm finally exactly where I wanted to be—even if the situation is a little different than I imagined."

"Maybe you will be surrounded by grandchildren one day," he said. "You just won't be old and gray. On second thought—I might kill anyone who tries to further the population with my daughter, so maybe not."

I laughed. "I feel sorry for him already," I said honestly.

Emmett grinned at me, and we fell silent again. I told myself then that I would never break the promise I'd made to Emmaleah's mother, even when I'd breathed my last.

We sat together in a peaceful silence, watching Emmaleah sleep, and so began our first night as parents.

* * *

Author's Note: _Thanks so much for reading my story! I know I've posted this like three times already, but this is the newly-edited version! Oh, and I DON'T OWN TWILIGHT. Stephenie Meyer does. Man, I would love to have a conversation with her... _


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